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New Old Celtic Game

I am working on a classic game with a strong Celtic influence (Witches and Wyverns). The player takes the role of a classic witch in a growing world. In this world magic is mysterious and untrusted by many. "Civilized" people frown upon its use and discriminate against those who practice it. It is considered crude, barbaric, and outdated compared to the New Ways (similar to the way paganism faded when Christianity came).

I want to keep the magic very ritualistic and not just where the player can throw around spells and such. Divination is very heavy in this game and is the main aspect of a witches power. To balance this I figured I would take after that show "Charmed" and give each witch an 'innate' power.

Witches also have a familar spirit that is bound to them. These familiars are really spirits that the witch invokes into an animal form. They are supernaturally linked to the witch and also grow to have magic powers themselves.

Some witches may want to choose to specialize in one particular area of magic. So I created some schools which so far include:

Natural
Divination
Elemental
Illusion
Candle
Enchantment

Natural Magic - Magic that works with plants and animals.

Divination - Magic used to gather information.

Elemental - Magic that works with Air, Fire, Earth, and Water.

Illusion - Spells that trick the senses.

Candle - Spells cast from a single candle, general spells such as lock, unlock, message.

Enchantment - Spells that give people or items other magical powers or enhancements.

Fey and the fairie courts play a big role in the game as well. Witches mostly come from humans. But I have put a little thought into other races.

Elves - Very rarely encountered, elves are majestic beings who guard the Old Ones. Servants of the Green Man, elves are given a way to get to The Summerland as a reward for their services. Very magical they get their magic through their link to the fey and the fairie courts. They are also highly skilled with the bow and sword.

Dwarves - Seen more oftenly than elves, dwarves are miners, blacksmiths, jewelers, and architects. Strong warriors who greatly distrust magic, dwarves are almost entirely disconnected to the fey. Though they still believe in the Old Path, they have secluded themselves from associating with it.

Halflings - Small, sweet people halflings live in hillocks in lush valleys. Among all the races, halflings accept witches more readily than any other, and at least one can be found in most halflings villages, though their magic is usually limited to healing and helping the farmers.

I want it to work on either a percentage system or a d10 system like used in World of Darkness games. Any advise, help, ideas, comments?

The world "pagan" has Latin roots for people who don't live in the city. When Christianity was adopted in Rome it was mostly in the cities (first) and the country folk stuck to their existing religions... leading "pagan" (folk from the country) to become associated with their religious beliefs. They weren't a product of Christianity, they were already there (first, no less).

In the general historic sense, a pagan is someone who is not a Christian or Jewish. The religions that fit this classification are wide and varied and some of them definitely grew up parallel (or before) the Old Testament events occurred (or were written, let's not debate religion).

So yeah, nijineko's confusing me too -- or using the world to describe something outside the common vernacular, which makes it a much lesser known "fact" on the pile.

it is lesser know history, ignored by most. i seem to be side tracking the post, so i'll leave it at this. the judeo-christian religion is much older than most people realize, tracking back more than 5500 years.

Don't remember much of my mythology anymore but some cults of Ba'al go back more than 14,000 years. Was used as the name for many gods and/or spirits, even the original chosen people spoke of their one God using the Ba'al name as a generic title for God. Pagan was used as a generic term for any country dweller, foreigner and foreign religion. Just a bit of trivial data stored in old dinosaur brain which is a repository of absolutely useless information relevant to nothing. Now where the dickens did I put my keys?

To original post I have a whole shelf of books written by philosophers, anthropologists, paleontologists, archaeologists and liars, er I mean story tellers. A little heavy for researching for a campaign but one you might like for a little color is "Henge Monuments" by Geoffrey Wainright. Combination of geography, building techniques, tools used, and ceremonies as constructed from artifacts and lore. Might not help in building a campaign but a little back ground material for the physical aspects of the era should help with role playing in the era. Boudicca the warrior queen is a popular topic of a lot of books about that era, lot of it is conjecture and fictionalized but I enjoy reading about her. I like strong women heroines.